- to continue losing weight (that's been going well ever since I rejoined Slimming World - more on that another time - although, strangely, I seem to have had a bit of a setback in Christmas week!)

- to post here much more regularly than I did in 2016

- to carry on with my New Year Resolution 1997.

Huh? What? 1997 was, like, twenty years ago, Sue.

Yes, and it was on January 1st 1997 that I resolved one vital thing. I vowed I would stop purging my female clothes, would accept and embrace the fact that I am transgender and never try to suppress it again and, to prove it, I would dress as a woman every day.

And I have kept that resolution since. Twenty years with no purging or denial. I am trans, that's what I am. And every day has been a testimony to that. Sure, the intensity ebbs and flows, as I've mentioned here from time to time, but fundamentally I know I am trans and have actively lived a trans life since.

I remember moving to my current home a few weeks before that New Year and, despite the enormous amount of decorating work that was going on and the quantities of paint and Polyfilla I was buying, I spent hundreds of pounds getting myself a full new wardrobe of women's clothes, from shoes to bras to nighties to skirts, raiding all of London's shoe shops and department stores to do so. I didn't go out dressed at that time so, frankly, I feel proud of my bravery buying all those feminine things in boy mode.

And in those early years after that resolution, like a lot of TGirls, I'd come home from work, throw off those horrid male work clothes straight away and slip into something altogether more appropriate, and declare "I am a woman". "They think I'm a man," I'd say. "I have to act like a man and appear like a man, but really I'm a woman." Maybe I'd not be quite so bold as to make such a black and white statement today, but it was a liberation from the oppression I felt before.

In my last post I mentioned that Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in 1977 had a profound effect on me and I took steps to embrace my femme side. That was a rocky journey for those next twenty years because of so many family and other cultural pressures, hence the many purges and resolutions to stamp out my trans leanings. But these last twenty years have been amazing in my female development and I hope that they are a precursor to two more decades of embracing my femininity.

Here, by the way, is my new avatar for 2017 (which I will get onto Blogger when I can remember how). I always change my profile pics every New Year, usually picking my favourite from the previous year.

8 comments:

Happy new year and congratulations on keeping your resolution from '97. Self acceptance is, I think, one of the most difficult things about being trans. You can keep your fear of being out, shopping nerves, trying to pass, etc; it all starts with learning and accepting who you are.

Wow, it's a steep and rough ride, but once you get there, it's a good place. Not idyllic, but better than the dark and illfitting past.

In some ways I amazed myself with my resolve that year. But, as you point out, it was altogether better than the previous years of denial and suppression and hiding. Happy New year to you too, Lynn. Sue x